Trojan Boat Forum

I have a 1978 F36 convertible Sedan. Last year when I drifted down a river-it was a pain to come down from the flybridge and haul in the anchor and then again to drop it at another spot. granted you don't need one if you stop offshore once or twice but repeated stops get to be a pain.
I know you can spend thousands on them but what I want to know is ?
What is a good middle of the road Windlass. Some look beautiful. This anchor of mine is big for my wife or other people to lift and drop and then lift back up.
Can I get a good one for $1000-any recommendations.
How about used. would I be buying another persons problem?-seems either they work or they don't. also Vertical or horizontal windlass.
Dfg4240

I am changing out my "Good" for a Profish 1000 by Lewmar. I found a great deal on the web, only 600 bucks. I am in the middle of the process at the moment so can't comment on the operation just yet, but it has free fall and retrieves at a high rate per the specs. More details and pics to follow soon on the topic.

im extremely interested in this thread! I myself am tired of dropping anchor while fishing or out swimming, last year i dropped it on the side of the boat, ouch! I am totally lost in windlass/roller/chain etc setup. I found windless on Amazon and other places on the web priced reasonably. I have a teak pulpit id like to have a roller countersunk in it, the only ones ive found on EBbay went over the end, im not interested in those, I want a 100% push button up, down, chain in anchor locker setup, pictures and details would be greatly appreciated

Well that's three of us.
I am going to look up the windlass from the above poster.
dfg4240

The profish 1000 would be one of my top picks also

Add me as another very interested boater. Wife really does not like the job. Currently rebuilding my bow pulpit and the design calls for the windlass to function in the middle of the pulpit as apposed to over the front.

It will cost more to install than the price of the windlass. Rode,chain,shackles,circuit breaker,wiring,chain lock.pulpit roller.

Do you really think the wife cares! Delay the dinghy!

The Pro Fish is a nice unit. The only comment I have is that a lot of horizontal units have a rode passage or opening through the deck that is exposed/open and will allow rain in through the deck. You will notice water in your bilge because of it after a rainfall or rough ride. Some units have a collar over the hole that hugs the gypsy and minimizes the amount of open space exposed to the elements. I believe their Pro Sport unit has the collar. Vertical or below deck units aren't affected by rain as much because of the typical gypsy housing design but there's no stopping rough seas. The best way to tackle this problem if practical is isolate the rode locker from the bilge and have it drain overboard as is done in newer boats.

When I installed my windlass, I fiberglassed the bulkhead between the vee berth and the rope locker and closed up the drain to the bilge. I put a Lewmar H3 horizontal windlass. I drilled a drain through the hull side so that the water from the rode and any rain water will drain overboard. One problem with the F32 rope locker is that the locker is so deep that it goes down almost to the waterline, so I put in a false bottom so that the drain hole would be far enough above the waterline. I also reefed out the balsa core around all the deck penetrations and filled the reefed out area with a thickened epoxy.

That's the right way to do it.

Wow...I think I am just going to cover my windless this year with a canvas cover. At least for this year, next year I love the above idea! Maybe I will try to do that.

When I was shopping for windlasses, one thing that i found repeatedly mentioned about the profish series was the lack of any seal where the case splits. Could this be the source of the water ingress complaints? Me thinks so. See page 18 in this link:http://www.lewmar.com/assets/img/datase ... zontal.pdf.

And you can see that there is no seal called out as a part number. Really? I would have bought a Good windlass because I like the built-in bitt, but they are rope only. I consider at least half the boat length in chain to be a mandatory part of the rode. I bought an HRC-8 for my tricabin.

my F32 came with some electric boat winch type thing in a plywood box and a spindle like a winch on a sailboat would have, it was never hooked up just bolted to the pulpit, its now a paperweight in my basement

I installed the Lewmar Profish 1000. love it!